Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Oct 31, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Nov 3, 2018 - Dec 29, 2018
Date Accepted: May 25, 2019
Date Submitted to PubMed: May 27, 2020
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Effectiveness of social media approaches to recruiting young adult cigarillo smokers
ABSTRACT
Background:
The prevalence of social media (SM) use among youth and young adults suggests SM as an appropriate platform for study recruitment from this population. Previous studies have examined the use of SM for recruitment, but few have compared different SM platforms, and none to our knowledge have attempted to recruit cigarillo users.
Objective:
The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of different SM platforms and advertisement images for recruiting 14-28-year-old cigarillo users to complete a cigarillo use survey.
Methods:
We obtained objective data for advertisement impressions for a 39-week SM recruitment campaign. Advertisements were targeted by age, geography, and interests. Advertising effectiveness was defined as the percentage of approved surveys per advertising impression. Chi-square tests were performed comparing the effectiveness of different advertisement images and platforms.
Results:
Valid survey completers (n=1,089) were predominately older (25-28 years old, n=839, 77%). Five hundred and sixty-eight (52%) identified as male, n=335 (31%) as African American, and n=196 (18%) as Hispanic. Advertisements delivered via Facebook/Instagram were more effective than Twitter; n=311 (0.03%) vs. n=661 (0.02%), Χ2(1, N=4,026,453) = 21.45, P<.001. Across platforms, ads featuring exclusively an image of cigarillos were more effective (n=397, 0.06%) than ads with images of individuals smoking (n=254, 0.02%), individuals not smoking (n=239, .02%), and groups not smoking (n=82, 0.01%), Χ2(3, N = 4,026,453) = 133.73, P<.001.
Conclusions:
The campaign was effective in recruiting a diverse sample representative of important racial/ethnic categories. Advertisements on Facebook were more effective than Twitter. Including a cigarillo image was consistently the most effective advertisement design and should be considered by others recruiting cigarillo users via SM.
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